We are not witches or wizards

Sammanfattning: This Bachelor’s thesis is an anthropological study of the child witch phenomenon in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Children experience extreme forms of violence and neglect of basic human rights, when they are suspected of being witches. As a result of poverty, families experience hardship in everyday life and in trying to understand and explain this, they blame it on the children possessing witchcraft. In trying to cope with the fact, that children may posses witchcraft, that can harm the entire family and local community, families visit the new Pentecostal churches in searching for answers and help to rescue the child from the possessing. Here the children are victims of extreme violence and neglect and as a consequence, the child suffers both physical and physiological and is stigmatized for life. The central argument in this thesis is that there exist a culture around witchcraft in the Nigerian population, in the Pentecostal churches and the Nollywood film industry that combined with poverty and disruption in the family leads to violence against children.